


And then there were three...

by Citrine (orphan_account)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Light Angst, M/M, Multi, Sherlock has a bit of a phobia about sex, Sibling Incest, Threesome - M/M/M, Told from Mycroft's pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-11
Updated: 2013-10-11
Packaged: 2017-12-29 02:41:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/999890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Citrine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We dine like civilised people, with the usual round of snapping and snide remarks traded back and forth between Sherlock and I. John watches us and I know that he wonders which is real, the bitter rivalry or the incestuous embrace. I could tell him that they both are.  However, I decide to leave the explanations to Sherlock. They bid me good-night and go upstairs a little after eleven. John yawns, but I am certain that his bed will be unslept in tomorrow morning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And then there were three...

**Author's Note:**

> For a dear friend who wanted a threesome...
> 
> Not beta read (because it was a present) so I apologise for any errors.
> 
> Usual disclaimers don't own anything, don't make any money etc

I remember us as children, scraping on the sofa in the nursery den whilst the old film played its self out _. Kind Hearts are more than cornets…_ It was a foolish thing, but I admired that dastardly villain, his iron nerve and scrupulous lack of conscience.  Sherlock, sulking in a corner, paid it no heed. Yet he knew, as I did, that rules were for other people, only he never learnt to be circumspect.

Duplicitous he calls it, that I will, in my perfect civil servant’s guise, bend and twist the world to suit myself.  I, however, have never battered myself against the walls of convention as he did in adolescent and indeed still does on occasion. John Watson, his partner in crime, has proved to be both a steadying influence and an agent provocateur.  It is an interesting combination, but then John is a surprisingly interesting man.

Self-deluded as are we all, John clings stubbornly to his heterosexuality although he quite clearly worships the ground my brother walks on.  Such foolishness, but perhaps it is better so, Sherlock is not easy with sexual matters save where he and I come home to a gentle harbour.

Some would say that is why Sherlock is aloof and apparently incorruptible; others would say that I corrupted him long ago. No, I did not, nor was he a child, but a young man who knew what he wanted and trusted me enough to seek it out.  I was his anchor then, his adoring brother, the one who held fast while he splintered himself apart.  Occasionally, he still rests his head upon my shoulder in the old way, but the months grow dusty between us in the meantime, especially now that John is part of his life. Not his lover and yet more than his friend, there is a synchronicity between them that Sherlock and I have only rarely shared. Nevertheless, they are tempestuous, sexually unresolved and John is not by nature a follower.

So we come to this, to the house by the lake with the willows drowning in the water. With Sherlock tight in my arms and John walking in on us, both fascinated and appalled.  He slams out and does not return until the evening star shimmers on the water. Sherlock has blamed me and worked himself up into a fine rage, but when John spreads his hands and tells us that we can’t do this he replies quietly. “We can.”

John looks as if he is going to weep. Sherlock holds out his arms and they cling together like two frightened children.  They disentangle seconds later, adult and embarrassed.

“Do you want me to leave?” John asks Sherlock, but he looks at me while he says it.

“There’s no need for that,” I reply, “not unless you find this situation intolerable.”

“I bloody well ought to.” He rubs the bridge of his nose. “What’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing,” says Sherlock quickly. “You’re perfect, amazing.”

“Don’t start all that,” says John and a smile cracks his face.

We dine like civilised people, with the usual round of snapping and snide remarks traded back and forth between Sherlock and I. John watches us and I know that he wonders which is real, the bitter rivalry or the incestuous embrace. I could tell him that they both are.  However, I decide to leave the explanations to Sherlock. They bid me good-night and go upstairs a little after eleven. John yawns, but I am certain that his bed will be unslept in tomorrow morning. 

It is not precisely desolation. However, it is as close to it as one can get, an aching sense of loss that keeps me awake until the early hours of the morning. Caring is not an advantage.

*

It has not been a magical experience. John is subdued and Sherlock is brittle at breakfast. Neither of them eats more than a mouthful and I am irritated by their lack of interest in the delicacies I have set before them. No, that is not the cause of my ire.

“He’d rather be with you,” John blurts suddenly. His plate spins away across the table and he jerks to his feet.

Sherlock grabs his forearm. “No, I wouldn’t.”  His fingers claw into John’s skin. “It isn’t you…I just don’t like to be crowded, normal sex, it isn’t…there isn’t enough space.”  He taps his temple. “Here. In my head.”

“There’s nothing to be afraid of.” John covers Sherlock’s hand with his and gives me a withering glare.  It is categorically all my fault, this phobia of Sherlock’s, John struggles for patience and fails. “What the hell did you do to him?”

I loved him when no one else could or would, when he was to be written off, disregarded and disinherited it was I who defended him ferociously.  I have taken the punches for him, literally upon occasion. That is all insignificant compared to the simple loving touch of my hand. John will dismiss it as such because at this moment he wants somebody to blame and I am to be his scapegoat.

“Stop it.” Sherlock stands up. “It isn’t his fault.”  His Adam’s apple works in his throat, much of it is too raw, too painful to be shared even with John. “Mycroft saved me.”

Then John surprises me. He studies Sherlock closely and he nods, sharp and military. “Okay.”  He takes Sherlock’s hand and tugs on it gently. “Let’s finish our breakfast then.”  John glances across the table at me. “I’ll say one thing for you, you’re a bloody good cook.”

I incline my head, an almost bow of acknowledgement. “Thank you.”

The armistice lasts for the rest of the day. Sherlock quickly reverts to his usual prickly self. John and I are both relieved that he has regained his equilibrium and the lazy day which follows is far from unpleasant.  There is a moment in idle early evening when I catch myself thinking that John Watson is perhaps to be admired.  He is proud and stubborn, but he does not have an inflated sense of his own importance which is just as well considering that Sherlock has enough ego for all of us.  

He and Sherlock are playing games, children’s games with boards, dice and coloured counters.  I observe them from behind my copy of the ‘Financial Times’ and eventually I allow myself to be dragged with mock reluctance into the vagaries of Monopoly.  The three of us squeeze thigh-to-thigh onto the ox leather Chesterfield.  It is intimate and companionable, spiced with the threat of illicit desire.  Sherlock’s casual grasp of my knee as he leans forward to the board does not go unnoticed.

John clears his throat. “You said that you weren’t a kid.”

“I wasn’t.” Sherlock throws a nine. “We’d been to a concert, an early birthday present three weeks before my eighteenth and I knew exactly what I wanted to round off the evening.”

John stares at the spread of red and green plastic buildings on the board. “Which was?”

“The same as you witnessed yesterday,” I reply. “I’m afraid that we are tediously dull in our repertoire.”

For some reason John finds that hysterically funny. He almost chokes on his laughter while we watch him in puzzlement. Eventually he leans back on the sofa with his eyes watering. “Only you could describe gay incest as dull.”  He giggles again and then sobers up. “Look, I’m not going to judge you, but you both know that this isn’t normal.”

“Normal’s for other people, John, ordinary people like you, not for us.” Sherlock looks sad. “We’re different, whether we choose to be or not.”

“Maybe not as different as you’d both like to believe.”  John chucks his cards down onto the table. “What I don’t understand is where I fit into all this, why invite me here if you wanted privacy and secrecy?”

“What did I tell you last night?” says Sherlock softly. “I wouldn’t have come here without you.”

John’s moved by that declaration, but still he flounders and I watch, the spider at the heart of the web, seeing everything. John Watson, invalided out of the army and estranged from his family, wants to be part of us whether he knows it or not.

“And I have a proposition for you,” I say boldly. “We will show you, Sherlock and I, all the forbidden intimacies of our lives, and you may observe or participate as you wish.”

“Don’t I get a say in this?” demands Sherlock.

“Bloody hell, you’re serious, aren’t you?” John rubs his hand over his face. “I’m not a voyeur.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Then you had better elect to take part in the proceedings.”  Sherlock’s dumbstruck, indignant expression is priceless, one might almost think that this isn’t what he wanted all along, but I am not so easily fooled.  There is a glimmer in his eyes and doubtless an ache of anticipation in his groin.

“Do you want to do this?” John asks him.

Sherlock breathes out in the affirmative, a hissing syllable of consent.

John gulps. “Where?”

“Here,” I reply.

There is a little rearrangement to be done first, a shifting of coffee table, cushions and sofa.  John drags an armchair over to give us a little more space and Sherlock settles beside me on the sofa, still fully clothed.  We have veiled the windows against the night although there are no prying eyes to fear and the peat blocks in the fire fill the room with the aroma of childhood.

Sherlock leans forward and puts his head on my shoulder.  The lower half of his body is angled away from me, but the air around us all ready reeks of sex.  I kiss his hair, silk soft and springy when I bury my nose in it for an instant.  John’s eyes are wide and blown. There is a distinct bulge in his jeans.  “This is all wrong,” he whispers.

I smile at him over the top of Sherlock’s bowed head. “Not for us.”  Without preliminary I place my hand over Sherlock’s groin and I am not surprised to find that he is more than ready for me.  He pushes up against my fingers and I am deft with zipper and underclothes alike.  The gasp is from John. Sherlock is determinedly quiet, when one indulges in such activities one must learn silence.  I curl my hand around his rigid prick and the sweet thing jerks in my fist. Well, it has been rather a while and John did interrupt us yesterday.

“Let me come,” Sherlock whispers into my neck.

John’s eyebrows have crawled into his hairline. A silent laugh shakes me. “Eventually, when John and I have had our fill of you.”

“Bastard.” He nuzzles into my throat and I begin to masturbate him. He makes a tiny noise and presses achingly against my collarbone. Then he turns his head until it fits perfectly into the curve of my neck and shoulder. Sherlock blinks owlishly, long eyelashes flickering. His gaze meets John’s and they grin at one another like two schoolboys engaged in a wicked conspiracy. Two schoolboys in love? That thought burns like acid and I lose the rhythm.  Sherlock growlers at me and pushes his hips up. “Am I boring you?”

“Never that.” I have no sharp words for him just then, but I know how to tease. “I just thought that it might be getting too much for you, and so soon.” 

“You’ll have to try harder than that.” Sherlock grinds the words out and his head falls back on my shoulder as I resume the movement of my hand.  He’s doggedly, lip bitingly quiet, but I eventually succeed in ringing a series of barely audible groans out of him. “Bastard,” he says again. It has become almost an endearment over the years.

“I’m in no hurry,” I tell him, but John scrapes back his chair before Sherlock can response.  John has already dispensed with his belt and unzipped his jeans. There is a waxy sheen of sweat on his forehead.

“Christ,” he whispers, “fuck.”  John drops to his knees in front of Sherlock. “This is insane.”  He extends his hand towards my prize.

I look at Sherlock who assents with a minuscule nod, so I relinquish my hold on his prick.  It jerks up against his stomach before John can catch it, but he is only a heartbeat behind.  His technique is quite different to mine, not that I hear Sherlock objecting.  He sprawls back, legs wide open and eyes closed, one hand clutches the sofa arm and the other holds fast to mine. I shall have bruises tomorrow.

John gazes up adoringly at Sherlock. “Can I kiss it?” he asks breathlessly.

Sherlock’s long fingers rake through John’s short hair. “Go on.”

John lowers his head and touches his lips almost reverently to the weeping slit at the crown of my brother’s prick.  He repeats the motion when Sherlock gasps and the flicks the tip of his tongue daintily out.  Then he slides his lips down over the purple and bulbous head.  Through half silted eyes I see that John has thrust a frantic hand into his own open jeans. Ice, the Adler woman said, iceman, but god help me I am not.  Never where Sherlock is concerned. He shudders and I am consumed by jealousy, certain that John will have the finishing of him. 

“Enough. Stop it.” Sherlock shoves at John’s shoulder.

John sits back on his haunches. He is disappointed, hurt and ready to flare up until Sherlock leans across to bestow a kiss on his damp lips.  “You’re too good.” Sherlock laughs shakily.  His glassy-eyed gaze encompasses us both. “I want to go to bed.”

*

It is my bed, the bed in which he and I were both born, since there is no other than would accommodate the three of us.  We are all naked beneath its brocade canopy.  Sherlock reclines on the feather pillows and John sits up at his side with the English oak headboard at his back. I am seated on the edge of my bed with my bare toes nestling into the Persian rug. There is enough space for him no to feel confined, but Sherlock’s demand for bed was a departure, nine times out of ten we accomplish the deed with our feet very firmly planted on the floor.

“What do you want?” John asks him.

“Touch me again, both of you.” 

And we do, trading his prick back and forth until he is writhing and moaning, but we are both being careful not to trigger the final explosion.  “Let me,” he begs.

We are all too far gone to sustain this for much longer. I look over at John who quirks an eyebrow.  Suddenly we are kissing passionately, leaning across Sherlock, who looks momentarily disbelieving and then triumphant.  He chuckles.  “I knew you two couldn’t keep your hands off each other.”

We cannot let such arrogance go unpunished.  My silk ties are used to bind him eaglespread to the bedposts. Sherlock curses and struggles, but we all know that he doesn’t truly want to escape our punishment. 

John and I grin at one another, stark naked and furiously aroused. I never thought of him as attractive before now, but I am ready to bend him over the bed and hammer him into eternity.  John won’t yield, not to me, nor I to him. Impasse. Blind lust shatters our hesitation into clumsy, groping frottage.  His back rams into the bed and we plunder one another’s mouths and pricks.  John doesn’t smell like Sherlock, his open pores give off a different tang and the texture of his hair is also different. I have to bend my head to kiss him and his hands crawl roughly on my hips.

Sherlock is moaning, yanking on his bonds, and I see the silk begin to slip. We are also slipping and I think ludicrously that this was meant to be for him alone. It does not matter, my body is not going to be denied. None of us are. Sherlock arches up and his cries of ecstasy mingle with ours.

It does not last.

I feel foolish afterwards and oddly bereft. John will not meet my eye.  It is Sherlock who mends us, who draws us both in to lie like limpets at his side in our birth bed.  The sky is grey with the threat of dawn and we cuddle together like lost infants in a fairy tale.

*

Only Sherlock could be so utterly impossible, so insistent that we must turn first one way and then another until we find a position that suits him.

“Is his highness comfortable yet?” John growls. His greased up prick also appears to be losing interest in the proceedings and I am heartedly sick of being squashed under my brother’s weight. 

“This will do,” says Sherlock grudgingly. This involves my sitting bolt upright in bed with three pillows heaped across my thighs whilst he straddles over them. John crawls into position behind him between my spread legs. My thigh muscles are protesting already and my back hurts. Sherlock may be slender, but he is no lightweight.  Suddenly I regret the past two days of sexual exploration. They have brought us to this and once John claims him he will never be mine again.  Needless to say it is far too late to back out now.  I shift position so that my back is better supported and cup Sherlock’s face in my hands. A look passes between us, one that excludes John and I cherish the moment. He kisses my temple as he used to do in the gentler moments of our youth and I feel my heart clench in misery. “What’s wrong?” he whispers, for my erection is quite gone.

“I’m getting old, dearheart,” I say and I feel it, dull and aching with the weight of all the time that has passed.

“No,” he says in denial of my explanation.

All this has taken place in scant seconds and now John is moving closer to Sherlock, to encircle his waist and kiss the nape of his neck. “Are you all right?”

“Of course I am.” Sherlock makes an effort to relax and his eyes defy me to speak.  He turns his head and melts into John’s kiss.  At least this will be no hurried, rushed coupling; we have already blunted the edge of our lusts and I believe whole heartedly that John has no desire to hurt him. I would not permit this otherwise.

The preparation has already been accomplished. They gaze at one another with their lips scarcely a finger’s width apart and an unspoken signal pasts between them.  Sherlock moves slightly and a pain lances through my thigh. It is unimportant, noticed by either of them. There is a flush across Sherlock’s almost hairless chest and John’s breathing rushes from his lungs only to be dragged sharply back in a laboured gulp. I recognise that he’s nervous too, this is very different to all his women.

Eager though, very eager.  He grasps Sherlock’s hips and pushes forward, not nearly hard enough that first time, but I see in their faces the instant the connection is achieved.  John’s eyes close and he breathes in little pants through open lips, forcing himself to go slowly.  He is not my concern. Sherlock is and Sherlock doesn’t like it.

His hands clench on my shoulders and I see a trace of fear in his beautiful eyes.  I smile for him. “Having fun?” I ask, not cruelly, but because I know that the old familiar sparring will anchor him to me.

“What do you think?” His voice carries all the conviction in the world, only his tension has transmitted its self to John.

He shudders in his rutting, forcing a halt. “God, are you sure?”

Sherlock gives him the answer he wants and John yields gratefully to the demands of his prick, fucking hard now and Sherlock eggs him on, yes, more, please, only wanting it to end.  Yet he is hard, rampant now and I take him in my hand, holding him against the dichotomy of flesh and sprit; the body that jolts in ecstasy when John rams against his prostate and the mind that rebels.

The oaken bedframe creaks like a storybook gallon in all those old pirate tales he loved, but it is too strong to break asunder.   Foolishly my memory grapples for one of those old Victorian stories, but I cannot recall them and I could not tell them now if I could.  The air is jerked from my body with every lunge of John’s pistoning hips. His face is contorted and I know that this is nearing its conclusion.

“Soon,” I mouth at Sherlock as I work his prick in my fist.  He nods and to my surprise he reaches down to return the favour. How seldom has his hand encircled me, rarely enough for my response to be fiery and desperate, my organ rises in a second to push urgently against his palm.

Sherlock shakes, trapped between John’s fucking and my hand, between need and fear. “I…John…it isn’t him…oh god, please…”

I translate despite the violent, forbidden lust that clouds my intellect.  John is not the problem; he loves John, enough to do this although the sweaty intimacy of this act is distasteful to him. Perhaps he will become accustomed to it or perhaps John, who is no fool, will desist in future, but I doubt that we will reach either harbour tonight.

It is John who shatters first; convulsive jerks and jolts, moaning his release into Sherlock’s shoulder as he brands him with his teeth.  He hangs limply on Sherlock’s back for the briefest time before he withdraws and tumbles down beside us.  John turns his head to watch our rapidly moving hands and then he looks up into Sherlock’s face. “This is what you like, isn’t it?” he whispers.

I think we both say yes in those final seconds before orgasm tears all our thoughts and all our words away.

*

“I wanted it just that once.” John strokes his finger down Sherlock’s cheek. “It isn’t something that we ever have to do again.”

Sherlock nestles into John’s arms. “Mycroft likes it.”

John looks across the bed at me. “Maybe, one day.”

“Perhaps,” I say. I may be clever, but I am not clairvoyant and I have no idea where this uncharted path will take us.

Silence surrounds us and I muse upon the strangeness of it. I never thought to involve another in the complex weave of heartfelt love, incestuous desire and bitter rivalry that constitutes my relationship with Sherlock.  John has accepted and understood as I never thought anyone could possibly do.  Sherlock loves him and he is not entirely unattractive to my jaded eyes. Yet if it ever came to a choice I would sacrifice John without a moment’s hesitation or regret to save Sherlock.

I watch them canoodle, exchanging relaxed and adoring kisses and caresses, and I wonder; whom would Sherlock choose? Which of us would live and which would die if he could only pull one of us from the wreck of a burning building?  That is a question which is it better not to reflect upon and one which I pray will remain forever unanswered.

 

 

 

 


End file.
